Time to See if Your Goals Suck

Do your company goals make sense?

Are you sure?

Have you asked other people?

Here’s why I ask. Many great leaders are visionary. They are able to create clear and compelling visions. Be the #1 Basket Weaving company in the TriState area! End pay inequity! Become the employer of choice for all Basket Weavers!

Lovely, yes. Helpful, no.

Great vision, but certainly not goals.

Everyone knows about SMART goals, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. And even though everyone can recite that almost as easily as the alphabet, many business leaders still have great visions but no actual goals set to get them there.

And that leaves your employees on a hamster wheel, running all over the place but really not getting anywhere. Without real goals, it’s hard for anyone to know what they need to do.

Here’s a different way to look at it.

Vision-Why

Goal-What, where, when

Objective-How

Vision- This is why you're doing what you're doing.

Become the employer of choice for all Basket Weavers

Goal-This is the what, where, and when you are going to do it.

Reduce turnover by 10% and increase employee engagement by 10% by 12/2022.

Objectives- This is how you're going to meet the goals.

Determine baseline for turnover and engagement Q1, 2022 hire HR consultant to do organizational assessment Q1 2022, Implement recommendations Q2 2022, launch engagement survey Q4 2022, assess progress for turnover and engagement Q4 2022

Then each person who is working on this goal has their own goals and objectives that roll up to this one. This format should be the same for your ops goals. Increasing revenue by 10% YOY is great. But how are you going to do it? What steps will you take? Increase sales of which products? Will you need to hire more salespeople to do that? Will you have to make the product less expensive to create?

This is where your team may need a bit more help. I think that most people are going to be on board with increasing revenue. But they need to understand where they fit in. Their goals have to align with department and company goals.

Take a look at your goals to see if they follow this structure. If they don’t see what you can finagle. And as always, if you hit a roadblock, I’m here to help.?